


Machete

by SeriouslyBella (BellaFuckingRockwell)



Series: 10 Songfics Challenge - House [6]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Catharsis, Episode: s03e12 One Day One Room, Established Relationship, F/M, House Being House, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Substance Abuse, bit of codependency, nothing graphic or gratuitous, weird cat metaphors apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 13:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21075329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellaFuckingRockwell/pseuds/SeriouslyBella
Summary: Doing the 10 Fics/10 Songs challenge again, this time in the Houseverse. Playlist goes on shuffle and for the first ten songs that come up I write a short fic inspired by it. (or a not so short one, in this case).Fic 6: Amanda Palmer - MacheteSummary: After the events of One Day One Room, House makes a drunken confession. Wilson turns to Chase for advice.





	Machete

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this fic references child abuse so please heed the tags. There's nothing at all graphic or out of canon but it's a theme throughout so please use your judgement if it's a difficult subject for you.

On the night House doesn't come to bed, Wilson lies in the dark, stroking the vacant portion of the mattress. He's trying not to think too much of it; trying not to speculate, ruminate, as the digital clock on the nightstand ushers in the twilight hours. It's not _that_ unusual for House to be up late after solving a case, wired, knocking back a few shots in front of the TV to bring him down a little. It is a bit unusual, though, that he's doing it when he hasn't actually needed to solve anything.

Wilson turns his pillow over, burying his face in the cooler side as he closes his eyes again. The case had been a challenge, he told himself, even if it wasn't a mystery. House just isn't _good_ at this stuff, comforting people, listening to their troubles. He doesn't know what he and that poor girl said to each other in the park, but Chase told him they were there for at least two hours. 

He'd arrived home that night to find House sitting at the piano. When he'd asked how the conversation had gone, House had just slammed harder on the keys until Wilson's ears started to ring. Giving up, he'd taken a shower, hoping those vague suspicions he'd held over the years hadn't just been confirmed. 

On his return, House was watching TV, holding his freshly poured bourbon close to his chest. His eyes didn't stray from the ancient action movie on the screen when Wilson told him he was going to sleep. He'd nodded and muttered something about joining him soon.

Wilson's eyes open in the dark. House hates action movies. 

A bang from the hallway, a stumble, has startled him to alertness; he realises he must have fallen asleep. He slips out of bed, hand flying to his forehead as he opens the door, eyes protesting the light. The bathroom door is half open, House's cane on the floor outside. When he hears the sound of retching, he bolts in to find House with his head halfway down the toilet, gripping the seat as his shoulders heave.

“House?” He drops to his knees beside him, placing a hand on his back. “Are you sick? What's wrong?”

House's eyes meet his, glassy and unfocused. Then as his hand slips off the seat and Wilson catches his flopping head before he can hit it on the toilet's rim, he can't hold back a grimace.

“You're drunk,” he says. “I'll get you some water.”

As he gets up to leave, House makes an uncoordinated grab for him. “Don't go.” He's slurring, vomit on his shirt. “Don't...”

“Hey.” Wilson lowers himself back down to the floor, perplexed. “Are you alright?”

House starts choking over the bowl again. Wilson rubs tender circles across the small of his back, murmuring reassurances, any exasperation he felt at his drunken state fading into concern. House never even wants him around when he drinks himself sick, let alone pleads with him to stay. Wilson allows him to make a clumsy swipe for his hand, wincing as House grips so hard that the tiny bones in his fingers shoot pain in protest; but he doesn't pull away. 

When House finally stops retching, having cleared the mere bile left in his digestive system, Wilson lets him collapse against him. As clumsy arms throw themselves around his middle, he jolts, surprised at the contact. Even in their most tender moments, this is not House. Even alcohol doesn't drive him to this, silent demands for closeness, comfort. It's jarring, and it's a little frightening, having House cling to him as if he were holding him off the edge of a cliff; the way he slackens when Wilson pulls him close and buries his lips in his hair, stroking, whispering, as his dread rises. As he pieces it together. All the things he wants to ask, to say, jumble into chaos in his head: _Why'd you get so drunk? What happened in that park? Why did it get to you so much?_

It takes him a while to form the question he's really looking for; longer still to evoke the courage to voice it. “Something happened to you as well, didn't it?”

Wilson doesn't even really expect a response. If anything, he expects House to tear away from him, shoot back a facetious, cutting dismissal at the very suggestion, his lizard brain lunging at the threat of vulnerability. He doesn't expect a murmured, “my dad.” 

He especially doesn't expect it to all suddenly make so much sense.

**

Wilson has always known there was something. Subtle, sometimes; but there. 

It's the way his personality seems to evaporate on the rare occasions Wilson sees him around his father. The nervousness when Wilson comes to him with kisses and apologies after an argument, like he doesn't quite trust that it's real. The way he flinched on the first and only occasion when Wilson raised his voice, hard enough to make him resolve never to yell again. The time they were throwing playful barbs and Wilson joked about ignoring him for the rest of the summer, the way he went silent and shut himself in his office for the remainder of the afternoon, not even opening the door to Cuddy. 

And of course, the way he insults and deflects when Wilson asks questions about any of it.

The next day, he finds him on the coma ward, stuffing a burrito in his mouth for the hangover as the oblivious patient on the bed next to his chair holds his cup. He closes the door behind him as he enters the room. “I see your lunchtime assistant is working hard,” he says. At the sight of him, he remembers the way he clung to him on the bathroom floor, hammered, broken; swallows back the tinge of pain at the memory.

House just shrugs, not taking his eyes off the soap opera on TV. “There's always a job for him. So long as he doesn't wake up.”

He looks pale, hair even more unkempt than usual. Wilson perches on the bed beside his chair, careful not to nudge the unconscious man's legs. “How are you doing?” he asks. He's been psyching himself up for this conversation all morning, but nothing ever sounds as smooth coming out of his mouth as it does in his head. “Since... you know... last night.”

“I believe it was actually this morning.” House reaches for the cup lodged between the coma patient's fingers, holding the straw to his lips as he turns to him. “I'm not doing so good, as it happens. I got a pounding headache. Nausea. Dizziness. And now, this annoying dweeb interrupting my show. Doctor Evan is just about to find out that Nurse Jill is an imposter. The real Nurse Jill...”

“House.” Wilson cuts him off, leaning forward to place a hand on his shoulder. House relaxes slightly into his touch, but his eyes are back on the screen. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nope.” 

Well, at least he remembers. Wilson hesitates a moment. It already feels hopeless, but he knew this wasn't going to be easy. 

“I'm sorry, House,” he says. “This must be really hard for you.”

“I'm fine.” He covers Wilson's hand with his own, but it's a stiff gesture; defensive, without connection. “And don't do that.”

“Don't do what?”

“That... sympathy stuff.” House shrugs him off, causing some of his drink to dribble out of the cup with the force of it. “Okay. Now you're just spoiling my meal. Go away.”

Wilson nods his defeat, getting up. He can feel House's walls rising, solid, keeping him inaccessible. It does no good to press yourself against them as if you could force your way through. 

“Okay, fine,” he says. “Sorry. And for the record, I'm empathising, not sympathising.”

“Same thing.” 

“It really isn't.” 

House reaches for the remote, turning up the volume on the TV. Beneath the din, Wilson hears him mutter, “fucking alcohol.”

He leans down to kiss House's lips, soft, chaste, and is relieved when he reciprocates. He still tastes vaguely like bourbon, with a hint of guacamole. “I guess I'll see you later, then. I love you.”

“Love you too,” he mutters, because he never has got the hang of saying that at an audible volume. Still, it makes Wilson smile. At least he's acting like himself.

**  
Wilson isn't sure what makes him approach Chase for advice. Not least because House would fucking kill him.

So he tells him he's talking about a friend.

Chase is twisting his lips in thought, hands clasped on the table in the hospital cafeteria, while Wilson pokes at a jumble of rubbery, lukewarm pasta with his fork. It's not the most delectable dish anyway, but he can't really face it. He's lost his appetite considerably over the past couple of days. 

“You know cats?” Chase says eventually.

Wilson nods. “I have heard of cats, yes.”

“Think about how you approach a cat,” he says. “You don't corner it and just fucking pet it, because it will scratch you and run away. You sort of... let it sniff your hand.”

Wilson raises an eyebrow. “I should let him sniff my hand?”

“Sounds a bit weird when you say it back like that. But, yes.” Chase nods. “Just put a hand out, let him know you're there, and let him come to you. If he doesn't want to talk about it, move on. Don't force your friend to open up.”

Wilson puts his fork down, taking another quick visual check of the cafeteria. No sign of House, but Wilson knows he could show up at any moment, like his inbuilt “Wilson's Buying Food” sensor has been activated. He really can't have him barging into this conversation.

Chase gestures at Wilson's plate. “Not hungry?”

“Big breakfast,” he lies. “You want it?”

Chase shrugs and takes the proffered meal, shoving away his own, only the scattered remains of a sandwich left. “Just make sure you get something later,” he says. “I can see that you're worried, but not taking care of yourself isn't going to help.”

“I'm fine,” he says, even though he isn't, and Chase nods politely, even though he knows he's lying. “Also, do me a favour – don't mention to House that we had this conversation. Delicate topics aren't his strong point and I'd rather he didn't know about this.”

Chase's eyebrows knit, but he shrugs. “Okay. Sure.

Wilson gives a strained, guilty smile as he reaches for his briefcase, wondering how many untruths he's clocked up during the course of this conversation. “Anyway, I'd better go. Thanks, Chase.”

“You're not going to be able to fix it, you know.” 

Before Wilson can respond, Chase is waving across the cafeteria. He looks up to see Cameron at the counter. “What do you mean?” he says.

“What I said,” Chase replies, eyes still fixed across the room. “I know you think you can, but you can't.”

He tries to divert his mind from absorbing the statement by focusing on Cameron waving back, and even from this distance Wilson can see the way her face illuminates. Interesting. “Something going on between you two?”

“Are you deflecting?” There's a pink tinge creeping through Chase's cheeks, a grin that's slightly too wide when he meets Wilson's eyes again. “You're starting to remind me of your boyfriend.”

**  
He decided to take House to dinner. House had grumbled a little, expressing a preference for Tivo and chow mein, but he'd relented when Wilson said he'd pay. Even though he always did anyway.

Wilson fills House's wine glass as House studies the menu with the same intensity he grants a case file. He tries not to think too much of the fact that it's his second glass, whilst his own first remains untouched. He can see the kiss of grey beneath House's eyes in the dim restaurant lighting, the lines on his forehead more pronounced than usual, a reminder of the recent nights they've lain awake side by side, each hoping the other will believe in their feigned sleep. There's no other choice; 3am is not a good time for this conversation. Late evenings after work are even worse, and he doesn't want to spring it on him during their lunch breaks. So instead of finding a window of opportunity, Wilson decided to create one. 

“I think Chase and Cameron are fucking,” House says, breaking the silence that is too frequent between them lately.

Wilson feels a pang of satisfaction. He knew it. Still, he asks, “how do you figure?”

House grunts, waving his hand dismissively. “Long story.”

He's always doing this lately; starting conversations he doesn't want to finish. Wilson wishes he would at least look at him, stop gazing at that menu as if he were on a date with it instead of him. He licks his lips, dry suddenly; takes to eyeing the vase in the middle of the table with its fake flowers as he says, “you know, I'm here if you need anything.”

“How kind, Jimmy.” He still doesn't look up. “You know, this seems like a liberal place. I'm sure they won't mind if you get under the table.”

The sudden tightness in his shoulders communicates that he knows exactly what Wilson is talking about. Well, he'd expected some resistance. 

Wilson opts for blunt instead. “I mean with the, you know... your dad.”

“I think I'm gonna have the steak,” House says. “Looks good.”

Wilson thinks back to the conversation with Chase. Maybe sometimes the cat doesn't sniff your hand right away. Maybe you have to persist.

“Listen.” He reaches across the table to cover House's hand with his own. House glances up then, but his eyes are wary, mouth drown into a frown. “When you're ready, I want to help...”

“You're boring me.” House snatches his hand away, reaching for his wine. “Hey, is this Merlot? I hate Merlot.”

“Seemed to enjoy your first glass,” Wilson points out. 

House glares at him, taking a sizeable gulp in defiance. “I like what it does. And if you're gonna go on about this all night, I need something to make it entertaining.”

“But it isn't boring, House.” Wilson is using his gentlest oncologist's voice, the one he evokes when he's trying to convince a terminally ill patient that treatment might still be worth it. “You went through a lot...”

“Of course it's boring!” he cuts in, raising his voice a little. “_Everyone_ has something like this.” 

The couple at the table beside them turn to look, and Wilson throws them an apologetic smile. They turn away, raising eyebrows at each other.

He leans forward. “No, they don't,” he says, lowering his voice in the hope that House will follow suit. “You're trying to rationalise it.”

“Nope, I'm trying to say that most people don't wanna whine about it every second.” He's still half-yelling, but their audience is politely averting its gaze this time. “I choose to be one of those people.”

“Then why did you tell me?” Wilson asks. “Why did it come out?”

“Because alcohol lowers your inhibitions.” House swirls the wine in his glass, eyeing it with rage, as if the entire situation is its fault. In his mind, it probably is. “Remember? Did you even go to med school? Or, you know, live on earth?”

An exhausted looking waiter with a lukewarm smile and impossibly tiny notepad approaches their table. Wilson puts a hand up to halt him. “Could you give us a moment, please?”

“No, don't give us a moment,” House snaps, and the waiter's smile fades. “I'll have a shot of bourbon and he'll have your girliest salad.”

The waiter frowns. “I'm not too sure how to quantify that, Sir...”

“Just the bourbon, then,” Wilson cuts in. “For now.”

Looking baffled, the waiter walks away. Wilson's nerves are raw with guilt, but denying House would only make things worse. Plus, lowered inhibitions....

God, that's manipulative. That's so manipulative. What the hell is that?

“So, about Cameron and Chase,” House says. “How long do you give it? Fifty bucks says a month.”

Wilson sighs, running a hand through his hair. He's fucking this up, he's completely disregarding Chase's advice, but he can't help it. He can't just leave this alone. “Please talk to me about it, House.” 

“Oh, God.” House slams the menu before him closed, an incredulous smirk crossing his mouth. “You just won't drop it, will you?”

“Talking about it might help.” 

Wilson reaches for his hand again, but House draws back as if he would burn him. He throws his eyes to the ceiling then reaches for his cane, hooked on the back of his chair. “It would help you,” he says. “Not me.”

“Why would it help me?” Wilson feels his stomach lurch at House's expression; exasperation, mostly, but something else. Is that... fear?

“Because,” he says, as he get to his feet, “you think you can fix it. You think if you swoop in on your flying unicorn with your white knight hat you can save me from the bad man. It's pathetic. Leave me alone.”

Wilson draws a breath, wanting to shoot something cutting back; something that will make House feel how much that statement hurt. Instead, he watches him scoop up his coat; throw an unwavering stare at the nearby couple who've resumed their spectating. “There's a great little theatre down the street,” he says to them, as Wilson mouths _sorry_. “Try going there.”

Wilson gets up too, hoping this isn't going to be one of those nights spent driving around all the bars in towns until he finds House stumbling around some dive, dominating the jukebox and demanding that the bartender return his keys. “Where are you going, House?”

“Home. Don't follow me until you've got this crap out of your system.”

Wilson lets him go, sinking back into his chair. He watches House stop at the door and fish around in his coat pocket for an amber vial, dumping at least three pills into his hand. At least he won't be chasing them down with booze now. Until he gets back, anyway.

When the waiter returns, bourbon and incredibly plain looking salad on a serving tray, he asks for the cheque as he looks at House's closed menu and envisions how this evening could have gone. It's not lost on him that he could have handled that better.

**  
“I could have handled it better,” he admits to Chase a few days later. 

He's pacing agitated paths up and down his office floor, hands fixed to his hips. They have no chance of discovery; House didn't come to work today, telling Wilson he was sick as he pulled the pillow over his head and refused to disclose his symptoms. His chest has been tight all day. House is never sick, and even when he is, he sucks it up and comes to work. Hell, he comes to work every day with half his leg missing. He can handle the sniffles, an upset stomach. Wilson knows he isn't sick at all, but when he'd tried to suggest House was depressed last night he'd simply thrown some pills in his mouth and switched on his Gameboy, refusing to acknowledge him for the rest of the evening. It's getting harder not to give up.

Chase is lounging on his couch, ankles on the armrest, keeping his shoes off the upholstery. “Did you offer your hand?” he asks.

“Oh, I offered it,” Wilson replies. “He bit it.”

“Did you offer it though, or did you shove it in his face?” 

Chase is looking at him like a parent trying to get a four year old to confess to a stolen cookie. Wilson stills, chewing his lip. “Probably the latter,” he admits eventually. “I just... I don't know what else to do. You're right. I can't fix this.”

“Nope. I did tell you that.”

“And I didn't believe you.” Wilson sighs; resumes his pacing. “I thought there had to be... I don't know... something.”

House would go nuts about this, about him dragging away one of his fellows from a case to talk to him about the one thing he himself doesn't even want to talk about. Well, it's not like Chase and the others can solve the case without House anyway, he rationalises. And Chase still has no idea who he's really talking about.

“Cats aren't like dogs,” Chase says. “You back a dog into a corner and scare the shit out of it, it will still come to you for belly rubs five minutes later. Cats remember. They'll get wary of you. They won't come to you at all.”

“Chase.” Wilson throws up his hands. “Please, no more cat metaphors. Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Honestly?” Chase shrugs. “You need to back off. He doesn't want to open up to you about it right now. So do what he says. Leave him alone.”

Wilson eyes the carpet, mulling it over. He'd, perhaps foolishly, hoped that Chase might tell him something he wanted to hear. “But... I can't just... _leave_ him with this.”

“Why not? You're not helping him by badgering him.”

Ha. Badgering him. Is that what he's been doing? It's not like he's been trying to force the conversation on House every day. Not like he's really insisted. Not properly. Maybe a little.

“Wilson, listen.” Chase's voice rings through his thoughts. “You need to accept that House might never talk to you about this.”

Wilson's head snaps up. Did he just say...? “We're not talking about House.”

“Yes, we are.”

Wilson chews his lip again, then sighs. Shrugs. “Okay, fine. We're talking about House.”

Chase smiles, with a kindness Wilson feels that he doesn't deserve. “Come and sit down, will you? You're making me nervous with all that pacing.”

Wilson approaches the couch, Chase swinging his legs down to make room for him. As he lowers himself next to him, he says, “so I just leave him alone? Pretend this never happened?”

“Not what I said.” Chase rubs at the stubble on his chin, not quite meeting Wilson's eyes. “But what I am going to say is that House never learned that love was safe. He doesn't know that he can trust you not to hurt him too. That's why he's shutting down.”

“So I need to get him to trust me.”

“Yes.”

“By backing off.”

“Yeah.”

Wilson lets this sink in, resting his chin in his hands as he casts his mind back over the past couple of weeks. House falling apart on the bathroom floor, only able to tell him in the first place because of the bourbon stripping him of his inhibitions. House turning up that stupid soap opera to drown out Wilson's concern. House storming out of the restaurant, scared, angry; sitting on the couch when Wilson got back, tapping the floor with his cane and glaring into his lap, only letting Wilson hold him when he apologised for even bringing it up. He hadn't broached the topic at all since, but... something's... _different._

They're managing to go through the motions of their relationship; affectionate insults, House swinging by at lunchtime for a quick kiss and to take bites of the sandwich he wasn't going to eat anyway, cuddles in front of the TV at night that seem increasingly stiff and tense, like they're on an early date. The elephant charges through the room, swinging its trunk, destroying everything in its path. How could Wilson just let that carry on? How could their relationship go back to normal if he didn't _help?_

How could he have possibly misunderstood House enough not to realise he'd been doing the exact opposite?

Everything feels dreamlike, edged with regret. 

Wilson breaks the rigid silence that has settled over them. “I've really fucked this up, huh?”

“You didn't mean to,” Chase says. “You love him. You did what you thought was right.”

“Mm.” He silently thanks Chase for cutting him some slack, knowing that it will be a while before he can do the same for himself. It occurs to him to ask, “how did you know that I was talking about House?”

“Just knew.” Chase shrugs. “Kind of always figured there was something like that with him.”

Wilson turns to face him on the couch. Maybe the signs weren't as subtle as he thought. “Why?”

Chase shrugs again. “Sometimes you just pick up on it. Gut feeling. Probably similar to the one you had. You know, the one that made you talk to _me_, specifically, about this.”

Chase makes a startled sound, but doesn't protest when Wilson pulls him in for a clumsy, lopsided hug.

**

Wilson backs off. It's difficult, it's so hard. Sometimes the sheer rebellion of it, the fight not to swoop in and kiss it better, is enough to drive him insane. 

But he backs off.

For the first few days, things are strained; House appears on edge in conversation, as if he's anticipating the topic every time Wilson opens his mouth. When he goes to pour a fourth shot of bourbon in the evenings, Wilson doesn't ask if he's okay, but gently suggests that perhaps his liver would thank him not to drink it. At first, House ignores him, and Wilson lets himself be ignored; but after a while, he drops back down to his usual two. And his Vicodin scripts start lasting longer than they have in weeks.

Wilson stops poking his his head into House's office every other hour to check in on him. As well as the added bonus of not getting a tennis ball lobbed in his direction with the same frequency, House starts coming to his office instead, putting his feet up on his desk, wanting to talk nonsense and bitch about Foreman. The evenings spent separately, Wilson reading on the bed and House jamming on his guitar on the couch, become evenings passed together in the living room. 

The long silences on the drive home are soon full again.

Wilson takes him back out to dinner, just to overwrite the memory of their last, disastrous date. They get the same waiter, who appears as relieved as Wilson is that he doesn't have to stumble right into the middle of a warzone this time. House rants about Cuddy, fixates on the signs that Chase and Cameron are indeed doing it, gives a list of reasons why Wilson's tie is stupid. Wilson finds himself laughing easily at the nonsense he comes out with, puzzles with him over whether Chase and Cameron have staked out the private spots in the hospital yet, defends his fashion choices only to provoke more insults. Wilson finishes his whole meal, that nauseous feeling in his stomach finally starting to abate. 

When they get home, they make love for the first time in weeks, and House clings to Wilson's shoulders, smothering his face and mouth in kisses as Wilson moves slowly inside him. He's never been so aggressively affectionate, so physical, so... giving, so unashamedly loving. Wilson barely recognises him. 

Then when he whispers, “I love you, James,” Wilson fears imminent cardiac arrest. House _never_ says it first. Unable to hold back his amazement, he interweaves their fingers as he murmurs, “I love you too, darling.”

Shortly afterwards, House curls up in his arms and drifts off to sleep. Wilson strokes his hair in the dark, letting the silent tears he can't hold back dry out to sticky smears on his cheeks. It feels better. It finally feels better. Finally feels safe enough to hope that House might be something close to okay again. That _they_ might be okay.

When he wakes up the next morning, House is still pressed against his chest, asleep with his fist balled in the blanket and his good leg slung over Wilson's hip. Wilson smiles down at him, noticing that the silvery marks beneath his eyes have faded. His lips are slightly parted, his breaths even; he looks so serene in the daylight bleeding through the curtains, as beautiful as he always was. He looks like House.

When Wilson gently shifts out of his grip, he stirs, grunting and swatting at nothing with his hand. “Sorry,” Wilson whispers, as his eyes stutter open. “Need to pee.”

House groans, falling back against the pillow and closing his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven.” Wilson sits up, stopping to ruffle House's hair before throwing back the blanket. “I need to get up. Got work to do.”

“It's Saturday. You're insane.” His voice is thick, guttural. He's exhausted. “Just don't make a lot of noise.”

Wilson smiles, planting a kiss on his forehead. “Yeah, because me drinking coffee and sending emails is really gonna wake you. You could sleep through anything. You could probably sleep through a freezing night outside in the cold.”

House's eyes open then, but this time they aren't fogged with sleep. They're sharp, alert; they roll across Wilson's face, as if searching for something. Wilson stares back at him dumbly. Then House's lip quivers; Wilson is perplexed as he grabs a handful of blanket and rolls over in bed, facing the opposite wall. 

“House?” When Wilson touches his bare back, he flinches. He cautiously pulls his hand away, resting it beside him on the bed. “What is it? What did I say?”

House shakes his head. “Nothing that you meant to say. Go take your piss.”

As he draws the blanket up over his head, Wilson watches; that helpless feeling is back, the one that drives every instinct, every impulse, within him, to want to ask more. He nods to nobody and fights with himself, fights to get off the bed, wander down the hallway to the bathroom. As he washes his hands, it occurs to him that House just... maybe, if he dared to believe it... opened up. Kind of. Admitting, in his own way, that Wilson had accidentally said something that hit a nerve. Something that his father said to him, maybe? Something...

Sleeping outside. 

The realisation curls through Wilson's stomach, squeezing, contorting; his fingers tremble as he programs the percolator, switches on his computer. It takes every ounce of strength he has not to rush back into the bedroom, pull House close to him and shower him with kisses, smother him with promises that he'll never let anyone hurt him again.

But he just sits in front of his screen, steam curling off the top of his coffee. He feels guilty, feels worthy of execution, for not going back in there. But rationally, he knows it wouldn't help. House would feel suffocated, patronised, forced to acknowledge it. He'd feel weak. He'd feel worse. He wouldn't feel in control. 

The morning passes in a rush of reports and emails, sentences he has to re-type and re-read in a bid to get them to make sense. He finishes all the coffee in the pot, until he's wired and jittery, cursing the aspirations that led him to doctor-hood, led him to needing to spend his Saturdays doing this instead of relaxing in front of the TV. At around noon, there's a noise from the bedroom; Wilson keeps his eyes on the screen, typing furiously. He listens out for the uneven steps in the hallway, making sure House gets to the bathroom okay. He waits.

When House enters the living room, he stops in the doorway. Wilson looks up, throwing him a feigned, long suffering smile. “I think my head's gonna explode,” he says. “Never seen my caseload so heavy.”

“That's too bad. You must be worn out.”

Wilson cocks an eyebrow at him. “Did you just sympathise with me?”

“No, I empathised. Thought you knew the difference.”

There's no mocking spark in House's eyes, as he holds onto the doorframe to support himself. He has a look on his face Wilson has seldom seen. Something... vulnerable. Afraid. Something similar to the way he'd looked as he heaved his guts up that night he was wasted.

But this time, he's sober. Calm. Wilson feels stupid, just staring at him silently. He's so well-versed in _saying_ things, supporting. Knowing when someone isn't okay, and speaking a few reassuring phrases once he's prised the reason for their lack of okay-ness out of them. He thinks he's pretty good at that.

Perhaps he hasn't been so great at just being there.

“She said there was something about me,” House says, his voice so quiet Wilson can barely hear him. “That it was like I was hurt too.”

“Who did?” he asks.

“The girl from the clinic. The rape victim. Eve.”

Wilson can't help himself from smiling. “You remembered a patient's name.”

“Of course.” House's eyes are shining. “I... I told her everything.”

Wilson closes his laptop; fights the urge to run over and throw his arms around House when he jabs a finger at a teardrop zig-zagging down his cheek. Instead, he remains seated; leans forward, soft, encouraging. House doesn't turn away, doesn't scream at Wilson to fuck off like he did whenever he was caught crying just after the infarction. He stays where he is. Holds his gaze.

Wilson holds still. House grips his bad thigh and makes his way across the room. When he reaches the couch, he hesitates. 

Wilson waits.

House sits down beside him, grunting a little with pain as he hoists his legs up and lays his head in Wilson's lap. Cautiously, Wilson places a hand on his back; rubs little circles right on the spine, just the way he likes. House relaxes against him, exhaling hard. His voice quivers a little as he says, “I'd like to tell you what happened to me now.”

Wilson braces himself. “I'd like to hear it.”


End file.
